WASHINGTON — The Library of Congress opened the papers of the late Justice Harry Blackmun on Thursday, releasing a trove of material from 24 years of internal deliberations at the Supreme Court on issues such as capital punishment, school prayer and abortion.

Blackmun's voluminous papers afford an exceptional view into the court's personalities and private arguments. The files describe the human emotions of the justices--eight of the current nine served with him--and portray them as being keenly interested in the public reaction to their rulings.

A 1973 memo by Blackmun, for example, expresses irritation on the eve of Richard Nixon's second inauguration that the release of the Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling was being delayed. Other papers reflect his belief that anti-abortion justices sought to put off a 1992 abortion case until the following year because they thought the chances of overturning Roe would be higher in a non-election year.

Blackmun was convinced that Roe was doomed when a court majority led by Chief Justice William Rehnquist appeared ready to effectively overrule Roe and had a draft opinion already in hand. The day was saved, from Blackmun's point of view, by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, who worked behind the scenes to help persuade an anguished Justice Anthony Kennedy to abandon the Rehnquist majority in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey. Blackmun retained the note Kennedy sent him to tell him he was switching.

The files provide a striking self-portrait of Blackmun, the author of the 1973 Roe decision, who was at first oblivious to its potential controversy ("I didn't appreciate it," he said) and then watched as "the roof fell in."

Blackmun remained defiantly proud of his achievement but aware, as he said, that "I'll carry it to my grave."

Blackmun's papers, including a 38-hour videotaped oral history by him, are among several caches on the modern court. Blackmun's, released in accord with his wishes exactly five years after his death at age 90 on March 4, 1999, are considered especially valuable because they include relatively recent material, up to his retirement in 1994, and lots of it. He took copious notes at the justices' closed conferences and kept nearly every scrap of paper.

Blackmun recalls in the oral history that Nixon, in pre-appointment chats, made not even a subtle attempt to seek out his views. Instead, Nixon wanted to know what Blackmun was worth financially and whether his wife could resist the Georgetown cocktail party circuit.

Kennedy's vote-switching was not unusual for a justice. The Blackmun materials underscore the fluidity of the court's decision-making process. In 1992, for example, Kennedy wrote a draft opinion for a majority upholding clergy-led graduation prayers in public schools. Then he circulated a note saying his draft looked wrong and joined the other side with Blackmun, who, as the senior justice, assigned Kennedy to write the decision declaring the practice unconstitutional.

The papers generally document Blackmun's conversion on capital punishment, at first considering it a matter for the states to decide, later becoming an out-and-out opponent, based on his view that the death penalty could not be fairly implemented. A scholarly study suggesting that black people and poor people were more likely to be sentenced to death influenced Blackmun's change of heart, the papers show.

He said in the oral history that he was also haunted by the routine of ruling in the "dead of night" on requests for stays of execution. "I can't speak for the other justices, but the reality of execution comes into the core of one's living that way," he said.

The materials supplement existing accounts of the breach over the years between Blackmun and his boyhood friend Chief Justice Warren Burger, as well as the doubts and discontent among some other justices over Burger's management of the court and his intellectual competence. "The chief obviously cannot control the conference . . . all talking at once," Blackmun wrote one day during the justices' closed conference.

Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, who controlled the Blackmun papers, gave advance access to the files to National Public Radio and The New York Times, which published reports on them Thursday. Koh clerked for Blackmun on the Supreme Court.

The papers also show a lighter side. Blackmun recounted how, when the justices watched films to determine whether they were pornographic, Justice John Harlan, who was nearly blind, kept asking his clerk, "What are they doing now?" Upon being told, Harlan would exclaim, "You don't say."

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Brethren bond

Justice Harry Blackmun's papers provide a glimpse of his relationship with other justices. The one with whom he forged the closest bond was Justice David Souter.

From their affectionate correspondence, the two Harvard College and Harvard Law School graduates appear to have been kindred souls. Not only were both meticulous, they also shared a love of the Northern landscape.

Over the summers, Souter sent Blackmun postcards from the New Hampshire mountains. One year he sent something else: a commercial photograph of two fishermen, one in an inflatable rowboat and the other in hip boots, casting a line. "Row v. Wade: The Great Western Fishing Controversy," the caption read. "For your collection," Souter wrote.